Name____________________________________                             Date_______________________
           From Dream to Disaster
Reading Comprehension Worksheet           

Directions:  Read the passage below carefully. When you have finished reading it completely, answer the questions that follow.

From Dream to Disaster - Identify (LA.910.1.7.3), Interpret (LA.910.2.1.5), Cause & Effect (LA.910.1.7.4), Evaluate (LA.910.2.2.1) & Analyze (LA.910.1.7.5, LA.910.2.1.1) 
by Gabriel Weltstein

BEFORE YOU READ:  When you read informational materials, consider the writer's credentials, and check to see that the writer is presenting accurate facts that you can verify in other reputable sources. 

On a calm, starry night in 1912, the largest ship that had ever been built struck an iceberg. In less than three hours, the ship plunged to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The first voyage of the R.M.S. Titanic had ended, and more than 1,500 people lost their lives.

When the Titanic began the voyage from England to New York, many people on board believed the massive ship was unsinkable. Passengers thought they were sailing on the safest ship afloat, a masterpiece of technology.
 
Strong and sleek, the Titanic was constructed of forty-six thousand tons of steel. It had a hull with a double bottom, unlike most ships. For extra safety, the hull was divided into sixteen watertight compartments, which were separated by locked doors. Water could flood four of the compartments, and the ship would still float. The ship's designers thought the worst collision would only damage two compartments.

The Titanic set sail on April 10, 1912. Four days later, the ship's radio operators received seven warnings from other ships about icebergs in the area. The Titanic had no procedure for relaying messages from the radio operators to the captain. The warning messages were received by several different radio operators. Not all of the messages reached Captain Smith. The night of April 14, the Titanic steamed ahead almost at full speed.
 
Late that evening, the Titanic arrived in the radio range of Canada. For the first time, passengers could send messages to their families in the United States. The last, most important iceberg warning came at 10:55 P.M., but the radio operator was busy sending passengers' personal messages. He never reported the iceberg warning to the captain.
 
Lookouts were posted in the crow's-nest high above the ship. Usually they had binoculars, but that night they did not. They strained their eyes searching the cold, moonless dark. The sea was calm and silent. In a rougher sea they might have spotted waves splashing against the enormous. 

At around 11:40 P.M., a lookout rang the alarm bell and telephoned the officers on the bridge. "Iceberg right ahead!" he yelled. The first officer ordered the crew to turn the ship away from the iceberg, and then he switched the doors closed in the watertight compartments. If the ship had turned away at full speed, it might have missed the iceberg. Instead, the first officer sent a signal to stop and reverse the engines, which slowed the ship down. hit iceberg and called out a warning in time.

The right side of the Titanic scraped against the iceberg. The jolt was slight, but the damage was serious. Ice rammed against the seams of the hull where rivets held together the steel plates. The rivets loosened and popped out. The plates separated, and water began pouring into the hull. The engineers turned on the pumps right away, but the sea flooded in too fast for the pumps to keep up. 
 
The doors of the watertight compartments were truly watertight, but the walls between the compartments were open at the tops. When one compartment flooded, water spilled over into the next one. The compartments resembled an ice cube tray tilted into a sink of water. It was only a matter of time before all the compartments flooded, and the ship nose-dived into the deep.

The Titanic carried more than 2,200 passengers but only enough lifeboats for 1,178 people. Even with the lifeboats, only around 700 people survived the disaster. The crew sent out distress signals by radio and fired white rockets into the night sky. The one ship close enough to help, the Californian, sat less than twenty miles away. Unfortunately, its operator had turned off the radio for the night and gone to sleep.

The sinking of the Titanic horrified the world. In 1913, the first International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea created new rules. The rules required ships to carry enough lifeboats for every person on board and to hold lifeboat drills on every voyage. Ships had to keep a radio watch twenty-four hours a day, every day. The legacy of the Titanic became one not only of death and loss, but of life and safety for all who sail the ocean waves.
 
Gabriel Weltstein is a history teacher. He has published several articles on the sinking of the Titanic and other disasters in history.

Questions:

1)   What is the tone of this selection?

2)   What is the setting of this passage?

3)   What seems to be the author's intent for writing this selection?

4)   What is the Main Idea of this passage?

QUESTION
5>   What two important facts are presented in the first paragraph? Where could you go to verify that these facts are accurate? 

IDENTIFY
6>   What details does the writer include about the ship's safety features? 

INTERPRET
7>   Why didn't the captain receive all the radio messages?
 
IDENTIFY
8>   In these two paragraphs, what causes are given for the collision with the iceberg? 

INFER
9>   If the first officer had not reversed the engines, then what might have happened? 

IDENTIFY
10>  What series of events is described in these two paragraphs? Does the writer present these events as subjective opinion or objective fact.
 
CAUSE & EFFECT
11>  What causes contributed to the loss of so many passengers? 

EVALUATE
12>  Would you consider this article accurate? Why or why not? 

ANALYZE
13> What does this information tell you about the writer's qualifications?